Shadowed Souls Part 1
by The Cat's Whiskers
Summary: Next in The Blood Will Tell Series. In every generation there is the Chosen One. Until Buffy Summers turned the Slayers into a franchise. And did we really expect Evil to simply shrug its shoulders and say, 'Oh well, it was nice while it lasted?
1. Chapter 1

_**Disclaimer**__: Don't own, etc., etc. Joss Whedon rules supreme and retains pretty much everything. Only written for personal enjoyment and because this plot bunny just wouldn't die, even after some serious staking…_

_**Summary:**__ Occurs shortly after __**How To Kill Your (Psycho) Boyfriend In One Hard Lesson (Part 2)**__. In every generation there is born the Chosen One, one girl in all the world…she alone shall have the power…until Buffy Summers turned the Slayers into a franchise. And did we really expect Evil to simply shrug its shoulders despondently and say, "Oh well, it was fun while it lasted"? _

NB: This is the third-from-last story in my "The Blood Will Tell" series, and I have to admit, the longest story. It is in **Six **Parts, with each part subdivided into chapters for the benefit of readers. I apologise for this, but _Shadowed Souls_ is **the **'pivotal' story and what is included here is important for the ending to my series, which hopefully will all be posted by the end of 2010. I apologise for the length of time this has taken, but I have a very demanding career and suffer indifferent health. I also lost Parts 2 & 5 of this story and had to "reintegrate" them after I suffered a corrupted hard drive. So here goes…

**SHADOWED SOULS**

**Chapter 1**

"Illyria!" Angel's fist was not gentle on the wood of Wesley's apartment door, but before he had time to strike more than a single blow, his fist encountered empty air as the door was yanked open and the demon Illyria, its skin glowing deep blue in agitation, stood in Wesley's doorway.

God-King of the Primordium or not, even Illyria hesitated as Team Angel With Guests _en masse_ surged into the apartment. "Up there!" The demon whispered, pointing imperiously towards the sleeping nest where its mate lay.

"_Whoa_." Lorne's soft exclamation and his double take caused them all, bar Spike (who having lived here was used to the décor), to arrest their forward progress abruptly.

Angel, Gunn, Lorne, The Groosalug and Harmony exchanged mutual 'majorly-creeped-out' glances as they took in the masses of sharp metal weaponry hanging all over the walls, the gruesome panoply of menacing looking objects and bric-a-brac 'ornaments', all of which seemed to incorporate at least one _spear-point _or _serrated-edge _motif, and the bookcases stacked with the sort of heavy, black-leather bound tomes that looked as if they'd go for your throat if you even _thought_ about picking one up.

"It's like…Darth Vader meets Ted Bundy…with a hint of Martha Stewart." Gunn muttered.

"You can critique Wesley's serial-killer _chic _later," Spike snarled, "not like you haven't seen it before people – remember that night you lot came bursting in here full of the self-righteous with Wes's brother's fiancée Miss Not-So-Nice-Manners in tow?"

"Yeah, but at the time we weren't really in a place where we were up to noticing the fact that this pad is decorated_ like a psychopath's penthouse_." Gunn's tone, perhaps understandably, was a bit acidic.

Angel moved forward in front of the TV and main U-shaped couch, heading towards Wesley's bedroom as Illyria, completely uninterested in their unease over the décor, waited impatiently on the first of the spiral steps leading up. Privately however, Angel agreed with Gunn's pithy assessment.

When they had burst in on Wesley with his future sister-in-law Fifi Whatshername tagging along they had been half-expecting to find a blood-spattered Spike chowing down on the ex-Watcher's lifeless body. The sharp conflict between Angel and Wesley that had ensued at that point, and the team's subsequent rapid embarrassed withdrawal, meant everyone had been so totally focussed on the immediate crisis that nobody had taken the time to really _look_ at their surroundings.

Even Angel's photographic memory had brought up Wesley's apartment as little more than a big blur, which was why all the plethora of weaponry took everyone aback. The fact that Wesley was in person a reserved, reflective character who very rarely raised his cultured, well-educated voice made this array of brutal axes and vicious-looking swords and knives all the more disturbing. For an instant as Angel saw Wesley's apartment and caught the scent of the man, he was reminded instead of Marcus, the vampire who had stolen the Gem of Amara from Spike and gone out into daylight hunting children.

"What's the problem?" Spike asked Illyria, right behind Angel as the older vampire followed her up to the bedroom area.

Angel braced himself for all sorts of nightmares; they had all been in the office since well before seven o'clock in the morning (not hard in Angel's case since his penthouse was in the building) and it was nearly ten before someone realised they hadn't laid eyes on either Wesley or Fred-stroke-Illyria. As if waiting for such realisation, Angel's private line had rung and he found himself conversing not with Fred but instead an agitated Illyria, the warrior-demon telling Angel that something was wrong with its mate; somehow Angel had found himself accompanied by his current entourage by the time he got to his private parking garage in Wolfram & Hart's basement.

"I believe he may have been poisoned." The warrior-demon said, using the vocal chords of its human host Fred quite superbly to intonate what would happen to the perpetrator of this crime against its mate. "Possibly with bread or cereals."

Angel and Spike surged towards the bed, Gunn, Lorne, Gru and Harmony on their heels. Poison was never good – usually far from painless, there was also a point of no return, after which the body had absorbed too much of the toxin to recover. Wesley lay in the centre of the bed, almost in a foetal position under the bedclothes. His hair, face, neck and shoulders were so wet with perspiration that it looked as if someone had just tipped a bucket of water over him; his face was twisted in pain and his features were quite literally a dull rain-cloud grey, his breathing shallow and laboured. Wesley made no acknowledgement of any of them in any way, showing no sign that he was aware that they were there – which, given what they were, and the dangerous potential they possessed, was the most frightening thing of all.

Lorne narrowed his eyes as he took in Wesley's aura, "Wait…this is definitely _physical_, not mystical, at any rate."

"Did he _say_ anything?" Gunn asked of Illyria, keeping a wary distance from the agitated demon, whose body had erupted into the full covering of chitin-like armour; dangerously unpredictable at the best of times, Illyria was about as trustworthy as a wounded tiger when angry or upset.

Illyria snorted, "Only foolish things. He was like this when I awoke; he spoke in a whisper through clenched teeth, he said to let Fred emerge and go to work and he would be all right when I returned this evening, but Fred-human was distressed within my brain cortex. Wesley has never been like this."

"He didn't mention poison?" Angel clarified in surprise; if Wesley had been conscious and alert enough to try and give Illyria the _I'm-fine-really_ brush off then he would certainly have been capable of explaining to the demon that he'd been poisoned and to get Team Angel here with Antidote X pronto.

Illyria shook its head. "I am not sure. What he said did not make sense. He blamed his illness on wheat." She pointed back down through the platform balustrade to the table where a box of popular breakfast cereals sat unopened. "But he has this for breakfast many days without pain."

"He said his cereal made him ill?" Gunn pressed, exchanging confused looks with Angel as Spike leaned past the older vampire to scrutinise the still figure in the bed.

"Yes, he said that the cause was his grain…"

There was a momentary pause as Angel tried to unravel this, then Spike suddenly jerked straight upright as if he'd been shot. "He said, 'my grain'!"

"Yes…" Illyria was getting impatient; it had just explained this to its mate's friends.

"Quiet!"

Illyria's entire body went very still as the English vampire rapped the command in a manner that was plain suicide.

Everyone's eyes widened at Spike's sudden Generalissimo attitude, but the blond vampire had more important things on his mind. "Illyria, go downstairs, fill the bowl in the sink with warm but not hot water and soak a clean, soft cloth in it. Lorne, Gru and Gunn, I'd wager my soul that somewhere in this homage to homicide there is a supply of thick curtains – get them and put them over _all _the windows. I don't want a chink of light in here. Harmony, go to the bathroom, get the strongest painkillers you can find, and fill a glass with tepid water – not warm or cool but lukewarm…_move_."

Galvanised by the snap he put into his tone, all of them including Illyria scrambled to obey, while Angel hesitated, staring at his grandson's sudden transformation into Buffy when she was in full Superhero Motivational Oratory Mode. "What…?"

Yanking open the drawers along the back wall of the bedroom platform, Spike growled, "There should be some sweats here…" picking up a pair of the baggy casual pants, he discarded them again, "not soft enough…here." Grabbing the more faded pair, he nodded towards the still figure on the bed. "Can you carry him to the bathroom?"

Angel didn't deign to even snort derisively at this question, he simply scooped Wesley into his arms, sheets and all, as if the man was a child, helped by the way Wesley was curled in on himself. Giving Spike a look that quite clearly said he could stand there all day holding Wesley without fatigue if he chose, Angel instead very carefully began to make his way down the spiral metal staircase to the ground floor one stair at a time, manoeuvring his body so as not to let Wesley's head or feet hit the staircase rail.

"Watch it – he's probably going to puke very soon." Spike said in a low tone as he followed on his grandsire's heels.

Gru, Gunn and Lorne were ransacking cupboards as Angel and Spike carefully made their way across the room; with Wesley's torso resting against his own, Angel could feel the ex-Watcher's stomach starting to roil and churn. Sparing a glance at the other three, he saw that Wesley's cupboards mainly consisted of more unpleasant-looking books and ancient, fragile scrolls.

As Gru ferreted through another cupboard, a battered scroll that looked as though it had been used to scrub floors fell and rolled directly into Angel's path as if straight out of one of those old Three Stooges/Marx Brothers comedies where the hero steps on the ball/banana skin and ends up somersaulting on his ass. Stopping the scroll's progress by placing the sole of his shoe on it, Angel glanced down, seeing the letters _N-i-_before he used the toe of his shoe to flirt it back out of the way to the cupboard it fell from, making sure he didn't jar his precious burden.

With a soft grunt of surprise, Gunn suddenly came away from another cupboard with his arms full of neatly folded curtains; there was even an unopened packet on top that read: _Blackout Curtains_ and the name of a company with a Union Jack logo. Swiftly taking some off him, Lorne and Gru started tacking them up over the already-closed vertical blinds currently dimming the sunlight shining on the windows, the ease with which they managed to find the appropriate equipment showing them all that Wesley was not unaccustomed to doing the job.

Illyria had finished at the sink and was now tracking them like a missile guidance system, its crystalline blue eyes almost sapphire in hue; Harmony likewise hovered, uncertain, in the bathroom doorway.

"Illyria, please would you change the bed – strip it and put on the softest new bedding you can find? Harm' give her a hand, pet." Spike spoke to the warrior-demon in a much more moderate tone than he had previously used as he followed Angel into the bathroom and shut the door firmly in their faces. "Uh-oh, _Angel_."

Hearing the bile rise in the ex-Watcher's stomach, Angel deftly supported Wesley as the Englishman vomited into the toilet bowl, sweat soaking his body, though at no time did Wesley open his eyes, his twisted features indicating he was in great pain. Wishing he could temporarily switch off his acute sense of smell, Angel instead turned his head to where Spike was adjusting the shower heads so that the water was lukewarm only, and that the spray did not come out with its usual force. Using one boot, Spike pushed off his other boot, then raised his leg and pulled the remaining one off with his hand, revealing black socks that he likewise removed to show white, rather bony feet. Shrugging out of his customary black leather duster, Spike unbuckled his belt and popped the button on his jeans, unzipping the fly and shoving them down his hips to the floor before stepping out of them, revealing that he had been 'going commando'. As if oblivious to Angel's wide-eyed stare and his own semi-nudity, Spike pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it beside his other clothing, now completely nude.

"What are you _doing_?" Angel managed to ask as Wesley vomited again, wretchedly, but the Englishman had nothing in his stomach to bring up.

"I forgot to bring a travel bag, and the wet look isn't me." Spike retorted. "We need to get him in the shower, genius. Either get out of your skivvies and lend us a hand, pet, or just give him to me."

Wesley's retching spasm had passed for the moment, so Angel laid him on the cool floor tiles and quickly disrobed himself of his _own_ all-black clothing, which, as with Spike, didn't include underwear. Picking up Wesley and getting rid of the tangled bedclothes, Angel stepped into the tepid shower. He held Wesley and watched in silent amazement as Spike, displaying the same cautious care as someone holding a delicate, priceless Ming Dynasty vase, carefully wiped the sweat from Wesley's body with a touch that was tender yet impersonal and not embarrassing – assuming Wesley was aware of it at all. As the ex-Watcher shivered and whimpered in his hold, Angel felt the first bite of fear – he had _never_ seen Wesley so incapacitated, even back in the day when Wesley was proclaiming himself a 'rogue demon hunter' despite being the ultimate geek with all the lightening reflexes and agile co-ordination of an arthritic tortoise.

Making shooing motions with his hands, Spike indicated for Angel to take Wesley out of the shower again. Laying the Watcher down on the mats directly outside the shower, Angel followed Spike's lead as the blond vampire carefully patted Wesley dry rather than just rubbing the towels over his body. Snagging the sweats with one hand even as he used the other to support Wesley's upper body close to his chest, Angel got them on and with Spike's help eased them up, glad that he hadn't fed so no blood could make his face blush as he carefully pulled the sweats up to Wesley's waist and averted his eyes from the Englishman's genitals. Once Wesley was back, he was going to absolutely _hate_ this, presumably why Spike had been so careful to shut the door.

Spike took Wesley into his supporting embrace as Angel quickly dried off and re-dressed, then Angel cradled Wesley again as Spike did the same; holding Wesley to him, Angel followed Spike out of the bathroom, his vampire sight adjusting to the fact that the entire apartment was now in thick gloom. Had it been night instead of mid-morning, the entire place would have been truly pitch-black. Like servitors at a posh hotel, the others were lined up at the bottom of the spiral staircase as if awaiting some ultra-important guest. Spike led the way back up and seemed satisfied with the bedding, nodding to Angel to put Wesley back; nobody spoke, having seemed to catch on to the fact that Spike was avoiding talking.

Laying Wesley in the centre of the bed, and pulling the covers around him, Angel looked up and Spike nodded approval, before jerking his head in a way that clearly commanded they vacate the area; the blond vampire led the way back downstairs in total silence.

"What do we do now?" Illyria demanded of the blond vampire since it seemed to know how to aid its mate, unconsciously keeping its voice low as the blond vampire's attitude seemed to indicate that noise distressed Wesley.

"You all go into work, I'll stay with Wesley." Spike said in that unnaturally low voice.

"Me too." Angel said in a non-negotiable tone.

Illyria shook its head, "No, I-"

"Illyria, you are hurting Wesley by being here. All of you are." Looking at their offended faces, Spike explained, "Wesley has a human medical condition called a _migraine_. It is not fatal or permanently damaging but it causes terrible pain, and unfortunately the only thing to do is let it run its course. Believe me Illyria, if you allow Fred to emerge and go into work, Wesley will be fine by the time you return home this evening."

"Migraine." Illyria repeated the unfamiliar term. "Wesley will have more of these?"

"Yes. Nobody really knows what causes them, but they differ from person to person. Some people have a lot of migraines that they can still function through, while others only have migraines rarely…"

"…but when they do, _hello_ breaking the pain barrier?" Gunn asked.

"Pretty much." Spike admitted.

"But why cannot I stay with my mate?" Illyria pressed.

"You make too much noise." Spike raised a hand as the demon made to speak again. "Before I became a vampire, when I was human, I too suffered from these migraine headaches and they are _excruciating_. When you have a migraine – everything is agonising, it's like your senses have been 'dialled up' twenty times higher than normal. Even a little light is terribly painful, like someone stabbing hot knives into your eyes. The faintest smell is a vile stench; to Wesley, that aftershave Gunn and Lorne are both wearing is literally nauseating. The smallest sound is like a heavy metal drummer in your brain – which reminds me, we need to stop everything in here that ticks or hums or buzzes; take all the batteries out of the clocks, turn off the microwave. Even the sound of your _breathing_ is too loud right now."

"But you can stay with Wes and look after him in total silence, 'cause you don't need to breathe." Gunn acknowledged; as long as Angel and Spike retained enough air in their lungs to force pass their vocal chords when they needed to talk, they could simply not bother to breathe for the duration.

Understanding finally, Illyria did not waste time dawdling; with the humans it went around the apartment, disabling the clocks, turning off the computer and television, both of which were on standby, and anything else that gave out any faint sound. Then the demon seemed to slump and shrink in on itself, the armour being absorbed into its body and the blue colour fading away before raising its head to reveal a pale, drawn-featured Fred rather than Illyria. With a grateful look, Fred and the others bar Spike and Angel crept out of the apartment and closed the door carefully behind them. Both vampires tilted their heads, listening, but the sounds they could pick up were in no way audible to human ears, meaning Wesley now lay in a cocoon of total silence.

_**Continued in Part 1 – Chapter 2**_

© 2004 & 2010, C. D. Stewart


	2. Chapter 2

_**Disclaimer**__: Please see Part 1 – Chapter 1_

**SHADOWED SOULS**

**Chapter 2**

Angel moved over to the long inner wall of the apartment, where the door was, intending to clean up some of the disarray left by Lorne, Gunn and Gru in their search for the curtains. Inside his head, Angel admitted that he was feeling a distinct disquiet over this place that went beyond the initial shock of seeing it decked out like some medieval armoury set piece from a Conan the Barbarian movie. He could see the edges of the wide, cream-coloured vertical blinds poking out from under the hems of the blackout curtains – the Blitz had taught the Brits how to really _not_ let in light. The waxed parquetry floor was constructed from real hardwoods and covered with genuine Chinese and Persian rugs, while the assorted dressers, side-tables and occasional tables were constructed of real wood carved in an attractive Spanish Moor style.

However, all these things, including the kitchen table with it's four chairs and the chrome kitchen décor had an impersonal air about them, and Angel recalled that they had already been _in situ_ when he and the others had helped Wesley move in, which had been the easiest of the house moves. When their new Wolfram & Hart salaries had enabled the gang to move up the property ladder to 'executive condominium' land (except Angel who of course had the Wolfram & Hart penthouse within their office building), Angel had been surprised to discover that Lorne had the most stuff to move, though of course the anagogic demon made a valid point about how hard it was to find furniture that didn't clash with bright green skin, so when he'd got some he'd kept hold of it. They had all helped each other move into their new places, including Angel, since everyone had considerately located a building with good sewer access, but with Wesley they had all just had to bring one large box each and dump it inside the apartment, job done.

Incongruously atop one side-table was a large, brightly floral vase holding silk chrysanthemums that Angel remembered had been a present to Fred from her late grandmother; idly as he replaced some books more tidily on the shelves Angel wondered if Fred had sub-let her own more modest apartment now that she had moved in with Wesley? The point was that all the 'personal _personal_' touches were Fred's. The apartment was far from barren, almost every shelf and table-top had a variety of knick-knacks, but apart from the androgynous Art Nouveau ornaments that had come with the apartment furniture, everything else was in some way 'work-related'; for instance in this not-properly-closed drawer there was a plastic bag like forensic scientists had, in which resided a blood-stained handkerchief and some sort of lab report, all of which practically screamed _mystical workaholic_.

_That is, mystical, with a capital 'M', _Angel realised. Urns; vases; trinkets; those old apothecary shop bottles made of thick clear and green glass that were, in this case, authentic and not tourist-knock-offs; little Chinese secret compartment boxes; framed parchment scripts and maps on the walls…even the things that Angel didn't recognise enough to accurately name still produced a sort of indescribable mystical _vibe_ that those who knew what to look for could see as clearly as a Las Vegas casino billboard. Angel had discovered that even the antique metal knight's helmet, currently resting on a bookshelf, which Lilah had bought for Wesley, was steeped in mystical history – it had been worn by a great Champion of Light knight during the Crusades, who had wiped out entire battalions of demons wholesale.

Angel scowled unhappily. He hadn't even realised that he was going to buy the Hyperion until he found himself writing out a huge cheque. He had only started renovating and refurbishing it – until Spike co-opted it – as a weak way to justify the purchase, but had been amazed at how much satisfaction it gave him to look at a wall he'd just wallpapered; it was an escape, something he could do and do well without worrying about Good versus Evil, Light and Dark, Champions and fighting to the death and all the other crap that his unlife consisted of the other twenty-three hours and fifty-eight minutes of the day.

From the looks of _this_ apartment Wesley left work to come to work, and Angel was not happy with how little he knew about his best friend's private life, though of course maybe that was the point…private. But when you were part of Team Angel, privacy, the synonym of which tended to be 'secrets', wasn't really an option. During the time he'd been part of the Sunnydale Scooby Gang himself, Angel had witnessed first hand how one person keeping bits of him or herself back from the others had, bluntly, put the lives of everyone else at risk.

The whole mess with Connor being a case in point; it still niggled at Angel that he and Wesley had never 'officially' reconciled. Wesley had fished him out of the ocean, fed him with his own blood and then simply walked out on Angel Investigations, though the ex-Watcher continued to drop everything and come through whenever the A.I. gang called. Though Angel was down in the hotel basement when Lorne and the gang were preparing to try Lorne's memory-restorative spell, he had overheard every word of Wesley and Gunn's confrontation in his office, including Wesley's final, simple, _"'I had my throat cut, and all my friends abandoned me.'"_

Wesley had got the sequence of events slightly wrong – in a way, he'd been abandoned _first_. The former Watcher had desperately searched for weeks to find a way to circumvent the Niiahzian Scroll Prophecy that the 'father would kill the son'; during that time they had all witnessed Wesley begin to look like hell and lose weight with black bags the size of suitcases under his eyes, but not one of them, including Angel himself, had even bothered to take the Englishman by the scruff of the neck, frogmarch him to the nearest comfy chair and demand that he get a bad case of verbal diarrhoea _now, _which would have saved a lot of trouble.

Angel knew he had acted badly in the situation, especially when his rage for revenge had led to him trying to suffocate Wesley in hospital, _proving that I let Lorne's very sound advice go in one ear and out the other, _he acknowledged. Wesley had had no intention of handing Connor over to Holtz, he had been taking the child away to raise himself, and Angel knew that he would have protected the boy to the death. It was just easier for everyone to blame Wesley totally rather than admitting that their own personal self-involvement had been a contributing factor.

The closest he and Wesley had come to talking about the whole situation properly was when he had tried, sincerely but clumsily, to tell Wesley he was sorry for Lilah's death. Although he had _hated_ scenting her on Wesley it was not so much the knowing about their dark, destructive affair, but the very real knowledge that Wolfram & Hart through Lilah had much more to offer someone of Wesley's skills than Angel himself. The vampire had known there was a real danger he could get up one sunset and find that Wesley had done a Lindsey MacDonald - ensconced in a corner office, sporting a $5,000 suit, Mulholland Drive address and a rocketing stock portfolio courtesy of his new employers.

Above and beyond that was simple, visceral jealousy – he had scented Wesley's blood, sensed the heat from the man's bruised flesh and thus had known that Lilah was sexually abusing Wesley, known that that it was psychologically a deeply unhealthy relationship he was at least partially responsible for…known there was nothing he could do. When Angelus had been free, one of the things uppermost in the creature's mind was not the intent to _kill_ Wesley, but to punish him with savage sadism for his 'betrayal' in taking the Lilah-bitch to his bed.

Angel's attempts at condolence had nearly crashed and burned when the ex-Watcher had shrugged and retorted that Angel and Lilah were mortal enemies, so _"'Why should you care what happened to her?'";_ Angel had instinctively answered without thinking, _"'Because __**you**__ did,_'" and somehow it had turned out to be the right thing to say. But there had been no further discussion on the subject. Angel suspected that if they ever did hash it out, Wesley would prove to be not as apologetic as Angel would like and probably intractable over whether he would do the same thing again in the circumstances; the vampire got the distinct impression, at least until he had his friends' memories of Connor removed, that Wesley felt he had done the only 'right' thing he could at the time, which definitely made Angel bristle.

Thing was, Angel _needed_ Wesley. He still missed Francis Doyle sometimes, and still half-believed there was something he could have done to prevent Doyle having to make his supreme sacrifice, but he hadn't known the Irish half-demon all that long, or all that well, when Doyle was killed, so their association was nothing more than a brief blip in the action-packed last five years of Angel's existence here in LA. When the Englishman first popped up, Cordelia and Angel had been grieving over Doyle and had, unfairly, blamed Wesley for _not_ being Doyle; instead of taking umbrage, the Englishman had instead seemed to take on an extra inept clumsiness as if trying to make them feel better by showing that he could in no way be as good as their dead friend.

The truth was that Wesley was invaluable and Angel had rapidly seen that the man's clumsy buffoonery was a self-defence mechanism, a way to make himself inoffensive to whichever 'Alpha male' was currently strutting around baring his teeth, in that case an Angel still grieving and angry over his failure to save Doyle.

Wesley was actually a very dangerous person who had perfected the art of appearing to be totally harmless, which made him even more lethal. What was it Eve had said, _"'Willing to sacrifice anything…or anyone…for the greater good.'" _That was Wesley, and the things he was willing to sacrifice included himself, without batting an eyelid, as Angel had learned on that rooftop when Wesley confronted his 'father'. But for Angel and Cordelia, Wesley had also proven a welcome link to their lives in Sunnydale, a whimsical reminder of the family and friends they had had to leave behind. Until Gunn, Fred and Lorne had gradually joined Angel Investigations, Angel, Wesley and Cordelia had been the "We Survived Sunnydale" trio. Now that Cordelia had been lost, Wesley was Angel's last shared link with Buffy and the rest of the Sunnydale gang. He was the closest thing Angel had to a best friend, but seemed recently to have adopted the more distant attitude of the General's loyal but not really noticeable second-in-command.

They had been a family at the Hyperion, Angel reminisced wistfully, often staying _en masse _overnight in the rooms, whereas now everyone scattered like windblown leaves by five-thirty and only meeting up during their daily conferences to sort out business problems; they didn't _just chat_ anymore. For instance, Wesley's pre-preparation showed how used to these migraines he must be, yet he hadn't uttered a word to anyone, just like he had kept the burden of his agonising over Connor hidden for weeks, instead just trying to fob Illyria off with an assurance that he was fine while really he would have spent the day here alone and in agony.

"Alright, what is it?"

Angel had to prevent himself from jumping at the growl right beside him, and looked into the pale, blue-topaz eyes of his grandson.

"You've just gone to Level Four on the Angel Brooding Scale, so I'm intervening." Spike told him in a clear but sub-vocal voice that Angel could hear perfectly but which Wesley wouldn't hear at all.

"Like there's a _scale_." Angel muttered irritably.

"Beg to differ, O grandsire of mine," Spike shot back, "goes up from Level One to Level Ten, devised and disseminated by our very own Xander Harris. Perceptive bloke, that one."

"Xander? Figures."

"He's my hero. Him and Sleeping Beauty up there," Spike said simply, "…and if you _ever _tell him that I'll stake you."

"You're serious." Angel realised incredulously; he had known Spike long enough to instantly recognise when the younger vampire was being sarcastic, facetious or malicious, and this wasn't it.

"_Hello, _evil not stupid. Xander's the greatest of the Scoobies _because_ he's the least of the Scoobies…like Wes." Spike shrugged.

"Why?" Angel asked bluntly, giving the peroxide blond his full attention; for all his sniping at and about his grandson, Angel had never made the mistake of so many others in viewing Spike as enthusiastic but slightly dim.

"'Cause the rest of us all got something to fall back on, but Xander had only himself." Spike absently pulled out his Marlboros and made to light one before he obviously remembered the effect acrid tobacco smoke would have on Wesley, replacing the packet and looking with narrowed eyes around the luxurious but disturbingly decorated apartment.

'Like Denis Thatcher used to say when he was asked about being married to Britain's first woman Prime Minister: "'_I'm always present, but never there._'" That's Xander. Always the guy in the background, at the edge of the photograph, the one nobody ever really notices. Buffy was the Slayer, you were the vampire with the super-senses and strength – and The Soul, natch. Giles had his Watcher training and was more sorcerer than adviser, with the Mark of Eyghon an' all, 'cause even though he renounced it, you can't go through something like that without it leaving scars. Willow was a genius and a witch, Oz was her male counterpart – genius with the super-strength of being a werewolf. Cordelia was rich and had more balls than most guys I know. Faith, Slayer; Tara, witch; Anyanka, demoness. Xander was just the Other One – he had no special powers, no deep well of supernatural inner fortitude, no brilliant intellect. He just kept turning up to fight evil with the rest of 'em. He's also the only one of us to have held down a steady job."

"I never even thought about it." Angel confessed softly.

Spike smiled, "Me neither, till that summer, forty-seven days when Buffy…was dead. I fought with the Scooby Gang, and Xander was The Guy, but nobody ever seemed to realise it. Everyone else was putting their Stratospheric IQs through college, honing their mystical powers, fighting the good fight. Xander…I can see why he got made foreman at the construction site so quick, he's good at it. He just kept going to work and paying Dawn's bills, and when Buffy came back he just carried on in the background while everyone else did their I'm-a-Champion-To-Save-The-World riff. He paid the bills, bought the groceries, kept the Potentials in chocolate and hankies. Xander Harris is the greatest of us all, 'cause he _has_ saved the world, and he's done it without anything other than himself to lean on."

"And you think Wesley's the same?"

Spike shook his head, "Not exactly, but near enough as damn it. You have the vampire super-powers. Cordelia was the vision girl. Lorne had the demonic power plus the link to the PTBs as a convenient back-up to your Pylean Princess. Gunn had brains as well as brawn, and could have your back in a real fight, with The Groosalug as handy skilled-warrior sidekick Number Two and fellow Champion of Light. Fred's IQ was so high it was in orbit with Mir and she's no slouch in the mystical whammy department – she takes longer than Wes' 'cause she don't speak so many other-dimensional languages, but give her a computer, ten minutes and access to a website like _Demons, Demons, Demons_ and she can usually hit the mother lode."

"So what's Wesley's _bête noir?_"

Spike paused and fiddled with the cigarette lighter in his other pocket, then quoted: "'Lord, give us the ability to see ourselves as others see us.'"

"Shakespeare?" hazarded Angel.

"Burns, but no way am I attempting _that_ accent. The modern corollary is the Anorexia Nervosa syndrome. Size eight beanpole girlie looks in the mirror, but she sees a 20 stone monster with Dolly Parton tits. _We_ look at Wesley and see a savvy fighter who's also _way_ smarter than us but without the arrogant 'tude, plus massive dollops of courage, loyalty, dedication and a nice line in sharp humour. _He _looks in the mirror and stills sees the pastel-wearing, fashion-victim _über-_nerd with all the battle skills and hand-eye co-ordination of a fence post, who washed up dumped by the Watchers Council in LA and only avoided Skid Row 'cause the Vampire With The Soul took on a charity case."

"He's a size eight beanpole who thinks he's a twenty stone freak with Dolly Parton tits." Angel repeated; only Spike could sum up the complex, confounding and contradictory state of Wesley Wyndham-Pryce's knotted psyche in one basic, blunt but crystal-clear sentence. "Damn it, Spike, I _get_ that…I've known for a while that Wesley's got some knots in his brainbox, and considering how cyborg Roger fooled Wesley so completely I think we can take him as a pretty accurate representation of the cheerful soul that is Wesley's so-called father. It's part of the reason I hated his thing with Lilah so much, she…"

"Hurt him, like Drusilla did me, for her pleasure." Spike said, his voice dropping so low even Angel had to strain to hear it.

"Yeah. I wanted to kill her for what she was doing to him, and I wanted kick Wesley's ass for _letting_ her do it to him. But, you know, I thought it was all _Lilah_…what she did to him, how she treated him. But this apartment...Doesn't it…?"

"…practically scream 'unhealthy obsession'?" Spike finished. "Oh yeah, in spades. First three nights when I was crashing here even I couldn't sleep 'cause of the in-your-face serial killer motif, and I am one."

"I know how hard Wesley tries to help me." Angel put in earnestly, feeling guilty over having seemed to criticise his friend non-stop for the past five minutes. "I'd be lost without him and I appreciate everything he does to help me with this redemption gig, but what I _hate_ is that he seems to…I don't know…he loses all sense of _self-preservation_ when it comes to helping _me_. I _hate _the fact that he throws himself headlong into the fire _for me_ without any regard for the fact that he's gonna get burned." Angel waved an angry arm around this apartment. "I want Wesley to have a life outside the Great Quest To Make Angel A Real Little Boy, and this place clearly shows he doesn't have one, as well as just being _way_ too paranoid for good mental health."

Spike assessed his grandfather shrewdly. "Being _that_ important in someone else's life is scary," he pointed out, "and a hell of a responsibility. It's like how movie stars freak out when they get a fan who knows every miniscule detail of their lives from birth; to be the object of that much single-minded devotion and investment of emotion will always be a burden to anyone with enough integrity of character to try to live up to it."

Angel gave Spike a sidelong look, "You admitting I have good points?"

"_A_ good point, and I suppose after two and a half centuries you had to do _something_ right." Spike back-pedalled loftily, ignored his grandfather's smirk. "I'm going to check on our boy."

As the blond vampire expected, Angel was on his heels. "What about that cloth you had Illyria soak?"

"Hm? Oh just to give her something to do. It won't help. Same with Harmony and the painkillers, though they will help eventually. It'll probably be another half an hour or so before Wesley will be able to take them without puking them straight back up."

Moving up the staircase in the total silence only their kind could achieve, the two vampires looked at the still figure in the bed. Wesley remained absolutely still, and though Angel could detect the very _tiniest_ relaxation of his facial muscles, the Englishman's face was still contorted in pain and he was perspiring heavily; underneath the coverings, Angel could tell that Wesley's fists seemed to be tightly clenched. The bedding would need to be changed again, but again Wesley had clearly anticipated such a contingency, for instead the normal one or two spare sets of bedclothes, there were four of identical patterns.

Drawing Spike back down the staircase two or three steps, Angel dropped his voice to the level just below the threshold of human hearing. "Were your migraines this bad?"

"Yeah." Spike's mouth thinned into an unhappy line. "That's how I started writing my poetry. Mum had an indoor bathroom put in our London townhouse when I was still in leading-strings." His smile was sweet in reminiscence. "Big claw-footed free-standing bath you could've washed a regiment in, huge washbasin and jug I couldn't even lift until I was eight, big white tiles on the floor. Mum had her dressing table put in there, one of those big ones with the central mirror and two side-ones, you know? She used to let me stand on a stool and help her brush her hair, soft it was…smelled of tea roses with a hint of peppermint…our bathroom was talked about for months amongst the London toffsback in 1859, I can tell you."

Angel waited patiently, only too aware of how precious such memories were. He remembered everything about his life – being Liam, being Angelus, being Angel – all his crimes, the rapes and tortures and murders, but _not_ faces. He had never even thought about his mother, father and little sister Kathy until 1898, when the Roma cursed him with a soul, only to discover with despair that he couldn't _quite_ recall their images with true sharpness, couldn't be certain whether his mother had had blue eyes or green. The features of his family, his victims, his friends, his enemies…after a while all became blurred and slightly indistinct.

Though he had recognised Holtz instantly when he saw the man after Sahjhan raised the vampire hunter in LA, Angel's recollections of the man who had pursued him so terribly had been out-of-focus. Francis Doyle had been dead only five years, but already his facial structure was becoming indistinct in Angel's mind, only his bright blue eyes remaining clear. Darla, Cordelia, even _Connor_, not gone but lost to him, was getting hazy round the edges. It was the ultimate twist of the knife – you avoided thinking of loved ones lost because it was too painful, only to find when you finally did try that their images had faded in your mind like an old photograph exposed to direct sunlight for too long.

"I used to lay – well, collapse – on those lovely cold tiles and just lie there in a little ball." Spike told his grandsire, "I used to make up poems and recite them in my head as a way to not focus on the invisible bastard who was driving white-hot needles into my left eye and pouring boiling acid into my brain. Mum just used to sit here for hours on end, just cradling me in her lap. Never moved a muscle, she didn't, was like a Buddha…gave her cramp something cruel. Even when she got the TB, she never coughed…just sat there with me like a female Michelangelo's David."

Angel looked again at the figure in the bed, helpless frustration surging through him at his total inability to ease Wesley's pain. There _was_ mystical healing magic of various sorts but it often caused more damage than it repaired, especially when the illness or injury, like in Wesley's case, was purely physical rather than even partially mystical. "He must be in agony. Hell, I can almost _see_ the blood pounding through his head."

"Get the painkillers, see if he can keep them down." suggested Spike, something flickering in his eyes and disappearing so fast Angel thought he'd imagined it. "It's about all _you_ can do."

Nodding with reluctant agreement, Angel nodded towards the bed and Spike went and sat on one of the bedside chairs so Wesley wouldn't be alone. Angel headed back down the spiral staircase to get the painkillers and glass of water Harmony had prepared, which must be at room temperature by now. He had reached the penultimate step when he finally registered the barely-detectable stress that Spike had given the personal pronoun. So what could Spike do that he didn't think Angel could?

The vampire is one of the fastest unnatural predators in any dimension; forget cheetahs or striking snakes…in some cases, a vampire had even moved fast enough to dodge a lightening bolt with less than a hundredth of a second's warning. Even when attacking prey, a vampire could move in absolute silence, or at least so close an approximation thereof that a human couldn't hear the noise they did make. Less than a second after the thought impinged on Angel's brain, the dark vampire was back up the staircase, wrenching the blond brutally away from where he was lowering his head to Wesley's throat, not so much pinning as trying to shove Spike _through_ the back bedroom wall with one forearm across the other vampire's throat, while the other twisted Spike's black T-shirt as that fist pushed into his stomach as if trying to grip his spine.

Keeping his arms down by his side, with his hands spread wide and pressed palm-side to the wall, Spike simply closed his eyes and tilted his head back as much as he was able, offering his throat to Angel, who was in full vampire-face, in a gesture of total submission. He lived or died at the other vampire's whim.

Angel's head twitched forward with the intent of ripping Spike's throat out before decapitating him, but a spark of rationality prevailed. For long seconds nothing moved as Angel brought it back from the edge. His voice a silk-soft lethal leopard's purr that was pure Angelus, he asked, "Why shouldn't I dust you right here?"

"It'll help him."

"Tell it to the Marines."

"You said you could almost see the blood pounding through his head…if I can lower his blood pressure, it'll help him."

Angel released Spike, who let the wall support him while he swallowed automatically against the pain in his throat – he was going to have a pretty necklace of violet bruises there shortly. The dark vampire looked at the bed. "No. He's helpless. He can't give us his permission."

"Let's try something else then." Spike said as calmly as if he hadn't just been micro-seconds from death at Angel's hands. "Get rid of your shoes and coat and lay down the other side of him."

Warily Angel did so; if Spike even so much as _looked_ at Wesley's neck, he was dust…the blond vampire kicked off his boots and removed his own duster before carefully settling himself on the bed on Wesley's other side, so the Watcher lay between the two vampires. Angel raised an eyebrow…this was getting into _ick_ territory.

"Give me your hand." Taking Angel's appendage, Spike carefully laid it on Wesley's right temple. "Nice and cool, just rest it there." With his own hand, Spike copied the move on Wesley's left temple, leaving his hand there for a moment and then, very gently, beginning to move his thumb in wide, shallow circles, almost stroking Wesley's forehead.

Angel copied the gesture, feeling rather foolish. For a couple of minutes nothing happened, then Angel saw that Wesley wasn't perspiring quite as heavily as before, though his face and body were still rigid. Not breathing, both vampires continued the gentle ministrations for twenty minutes. Gradually, Wesley's breathing became less laboured and he stopped sweating so much, but after another twenty minutes, that was all the improvement that had been made.

It wasn't enough, Angel acknowledged as his thumb moved tirelessly in rhythm with Spike's digit, the blond vampire seemingly absorbed in studying the pattern of the bed linen. "We can't without his permission." He snapped defensively. "It's almost like rape, I _won't_ do that to him…"

Whatever rejoinder Spike might have made was forgotten as Wesley's head twitched slightly. His eyes never opened, nor his face lose the pain-lines, but under the covers, Wesley's hand slowly uncurled and slid along the sheet until it reached the spot where Angel's wrist rested on the covers; through the fabric Angel still felt the slight pressure as Wesley pressed his fingers against Angel's wrist. Moving his own hand so he could lightly squeeze the hand through the bedclothes, Angel raised a grim face to Spike, far from happy, but accepting the tacit permission.

"We need to feed simultaneously, to balance the flow of blood loss from either side of Wesley's neck. Feed very slowly, a sudden drop in his blood pressure will only cause him more pain." Spike's clinical words were at odds with the gentle look in his eyes.

Nodding his head reluctantly Angel lowered his head to Wesley's jugular, allowing his fangs to erupt. Pressing his mouth to the ex-Watcher's jugular, he could _feel_ the blood pulsing harshly through the artery, pumping through Wesley's cranium and contributing to his terrible pain. Stretching out one hand across Wesley's chest, Angel's fingers were met by those of Spike, who had done the same. After a moment, Spike's fingers squeezed his in the signal, and both carefully bit down, letting the rich, adrenaline saturated blood trickle into their mouths…

_**Continued in Chapter 3…**_

© 2010, The Cat's Whiskers


	3. Chapter 3

_**Disclaimer**__: Please see Part 1 – Chapter 1_…

**SHADOWED SOULS**

**Chapter 3**

"I can't believe the little cow's still alive!" Nigel seethed.

"_Not _the Sevres, please." Ffion requested in amusement, sprawled lazily on the bed in a bit of silk not big enough to qualify as a "scrap of cloth".

Nigel replaced the ornately decorated antique cup back on the saucer, his ire fading somewhat as he looked at his fiancée – in two days wife – who appeared remarkably undisturbed by the failure of their plan to have Dawn Summers murdered. Ffion's London apartment was spacious and airy, with high ceilings and a soothing, complementary pastel décor, each room full of expensive, tastefully arranged antique furniture, ornaments and _object d'art _that disguised the mystical nature of many of them. Only in the master bedroom did hints of a less demure personality show, in the rich damask silk bedclothes, the bright turquoise and daffodil cushions. Going over to the bed, as Ffion popped another strawberry into her mouth and squished it firmly between teeth made perfect by one of London's top orthodontists, Nigel ignored the gauzy frippery masquerading as a garment, sliding his hand up her inner thigh to her secret place, his fingers stroking, grinning as her breath hitched and her lips parted. He still wasn't _quite_ ready to give up the sulking though. "I still can't believe that Staavuz screwed up!"

"But he didn't lead them back to us," Ffion pointed out as calmly as if Nigel wasn't doing what he was doing. "There will be another opportunity shortly, an even better one, anyway. An opportunity spelled "Prophecy"."

Nigel paused. "True Prophecy?"

Ffion nodded – when it came to prophecies, mystical texts were overwhelmed with them like fleas on a sewer rat, but the reliability of each individual prophecy swung wildly from "only useful to line the bottom of your birdcage" to "infallible", and often it wasn't clear until too late just which extremity of this pendulum any given oracle was headed towards. However, a "True Prophecy" such as that blasted Shanshu, for example, was definitely within in the "infallible" category; it might get the odd minor detail not quite spot on, but when it came to the Big Picture, take it as read.

There were very, very few _proven_ True Prophecies in any dimension, and this one was particularly problematic. Millennia of wars, plagues and in recent centuries the denial of the mystical reality in Earth's powerful Western Hemisphere, meant that often vital, irreplaceable texts got destroyed, prophets were killed mid-verse, and learned scholars died before they could accomplish essential translations. The Shanshu was one, a mysterious long lost text called Niall or Niamh or Neil, nobody was sure which, had been another, and the Niiahzian Scrolls yet another, though the last had had to be drastically repaired.

Ffion wasn't quite clear on what had happened, but she did remember that last year an ancient demon called Sahjhan had moved through time trying to falsify parts of the Niiahzian Scrolls. Of course, you _couldn't_ falsify True Prophecy, because whatever you did, things twisted back on themselves: _Destiny struggles to reassert the pattern that was meant to be. Sometimes, happily, it fails, and sometimes, happily, it succeeds_1_._ That proverb had been uttered 5,000 years ago by one of Ffion's own Watcher ancestresses. Something about patricide or infanticide…Angel the Vampire With A Soul killing a baby? However, he had done no such thing. The literal translation had been "the sire will slay his seed", which meant nothing to anyone and no noticeable cataclysm had occurred, but Ffion knew that somehow, the prophecy would or had come to pass.

Coming back to herself, Ffion told Nigel, "Yes, indeed. Unfortunately it's all rather vague, because we had to chase down fragments from a hundred different sources, some of which no longer exist, like the Niall Scroll or whatever it is, but basically it seems that something nasty will destroy the Slayers, making that little American slut Summers the only one of her kind again."

"Any idea when?"

"Soon, is all the chronologists could work out, there isn't enough information to be precise. However, the thought occurs to me, that perhaps we needn't make another direct assault on dear little Dawn. If we were to merely have a man on the ground as it were…"

Nigel beamed, "Waiting in the wings? Loitering with intent? Someone who could remove the younger Miss Summers when everyone else is distracted by battling whatever Big Bad is trying to take out the excess Slayers?"

"Exactly." Ffion grinned back at him, pleased she had taken him into her confidence; contrary to her expectations, Nigel Wyndham-Pryce was proving a most _satisfactory_ partner both in crime and passion. "Like a Russian sleeper in those hysterical American "Reds are everywhere" movies. By the time Buffy and her acolytes look up from the slice-and-dice and notice anything wrong, it will be way too late."

They grinned at each, resembling two Great White Sharks in a feeding frenzy.

_**Continued in Chapter 4…**_

© 2005 & 2010, The Cat's Whiskers


	4. Chapter 4

_**Disclaimer**__: See Chapter 1..._

**SHADOWED SOULS**

**Chapter 4**

After five minutes of careful cogitation, Wesley decided to open one eye a bit and see if his head _didn't_ fall off. He had no real sense of how long he'd been lying here, but then his usually reliable inner clock was always scrambled by the agony. And of course he _did _have only himself to blame, he acknowledged ruefully while being careful not to move a muscle…in a second he'd do it, build up to it first…

The blood test results from the handkerchief he'd been given by his weasely associate at _Ye Olde Britannia_ had been stunning yet, in a peculiar way, something that Wesley found wasn't really a surprise to him. What it had done was underscore his need for a complete, undamaged _Scroll of Niamh_, but since there was more likelihood of Jack the Ripper being elected Man Of The Year by the Women's Institute than Wesley being able to locate one, he'd had to do his best with what he had, which led directly to his current agony.

Ignoring the warning tingle in his temple, he'd pushed himself to track down every scrap and resource he could. Eschewing food and sleep he'd been putting in a good six hours again _after_ a full day in the office trying to get a handle on a nasty intimately connected to the Senior Partners, some sort of cabal named _The Circle of the Black Thorn, _which Angel was convinced was an integral part of Lindsey MacDonald's "we're in the middle of _The _Apocalypse" riff. Hours spent in the middle of the night, hunched over books and parchment bearing horrific pictures and written in a hand that always seemed to head straight for "tiny and crabbed" had taken their toll. Finally going to bed for a change, he had been awoken in the middle of last night by the searing agony in his skull as his body rebelled and decided to give him an object lesson in why he should _not_ ignore what it told him.

Such ruminations, however, were only delaying the inevitable moment when he had to risk moving again, so... Raising one lid a crack and encouraged by the lack of searing agony, he opened one eye all the way, then the other. His face ached from the stress of him clenching muscles against the pain for so long, but he actually felt…okay. Weak as a newborn kitten, but pain free. He had a vague memory of Team Angel being there _en masse_ at some point, their every twitch drowning him in fresh waves of excruciating pain, then just Angel and Spike's voices…something about lowering his blood pressure, Angel sounding angry…then two warm spots of suction either side his neck and suddenly – blessed relief as the endless pain had eased, like someone snipping a taut elastic band with scissors…hands lifting his head and helping him take painkillers with tepid water…He'd drifted a while after that, the pain still acute but not crippling, until he'd gone into a natural sleep. Ah yes, he was still in bed with a now cold hot water bottle on either side -

Spike cuddling him on the left, Angel on the right.

_Whoa_.

Blinking rapidly to clear his gummed eyes, Wesley regarded the two vampires, each of whom was pressed up against him each side, half-propped up on pillows, their expressions calm as they regarded him, their eyelids half-closed sensuously over eyes that glittered with the pleasure of recent feeding. Moving one arm upright, Wesley billowed the covers and looked down, relief swamping him when he saw the sweats, only to dissolve like hoarfrost under sun when he recalled that he hadn't been wearing them last night.

Frantically he searched for a memory of Fred and/or Illyria donning them on him, but all he got was vague flashes of Angel holding him as he vomited into the toilet bowl, and Spike turning on the shower before beginning a striptease. "Am I going to need to start hyperventilating shortly?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," Spike answered as he slid off the bed, standing up and putting his boots and coat back on, "but yeah; the potential for excruciating embarrassment is trying to sneak past the bouncers on the door. Just be English and pretend none of it ever happened."

"None of what?" Retorted Wesley sarcastically, sitting upright, then hastily added, "Forget I asked that question, _please."_

"We fed…" Angel confessed hesitantly as he copied Spike and then hovered as Wesley carefully shuffled to the edge of the bed, "…lowering your blood pressure helped ease the migraine."

Automatically looking at the clock, Wesley saw with surprise that his migraine had lasted a good two hours less than normal, as Spike walked past the bottom of the bed and started down the staircase to the ground floor while Angel hovered as Wesley, gritting his teeth, stood upright, fresh relief surging as his head only throbbed slightly and his stomach merely gave a half-hearted churn.

"I see. Hence the…" Nothing would have induced Wesley to say 'cuddling' even if his migraine came back that instant.

"…unfortunate necessity of close body contact." Spike's voice drifted back up the stairs as Wesley cautiously made his way after the blond, aware of Angel practically on his heels, the dark vampire ready to grab if Wesley should falter.

Instead of feeling embarrassed, Wesley flushed as he found his main emotion was one of relief, followed by gratitude. "I've heard of kissing cousins, but this is ridiculous," he murmured under his breath as he reached the bottom of the steps without incident and began to head for the kitchen, forgetting completely the super-hearing of vampires.

Angel and Spike exchanged startled, _what-did-he-just-say?_ looks, but before either of them could form the question, Wesley spoke again, "Spike, would you make me a cup of tea, please?"

"I'll make it," offered Angel anxiously, watching as Wesley swayed a moment.

Wesley and Spike exchanged looks of perfect understanding. "Not on your unlife." Wesley said flatly. "Spike, if you would?"

"Wha-at?!" Angel demanded looking back and forth – it was obvious he'd just been silently insulted by the two Englishmen, but what about?

Sitting down slowly – he still felt about 85 right now - in the chair Spike pulled out for him as the blond vampire went past into the kitchen, Wesley bluntly told Angel: "There are three things Americans can't do – tea, cheese and irony. The last decent cuppa the Yanks mashed was at the Boston Tea Party."

"Pretty baffling really." Spike commented over his shoulder as he flicked on the kettle and got a couple of mugs of the stand – a spot of tea was sometimes what a vampire needed too. "I mean, we are talking about a nation of people with the creative vision and scientific genius to put a man on the moon, yet the simple premise of adding boiling water to plant leaves and it all goes horribly wrong."

"I'm _Irish_!" Angel declared in mortal offence.

"How long have you lived in this country?" Wesley demanded.

Angel glared, "One hundred and two years, why?"

"Long enough for the rot to set in." Wesley judged immovably. "Spike, _you_ make the tea. Angel, there should be some more of those lovely extra-strong opiate-based painkillers in the bathroom medicine cabinet. Be a cinnamon bun and fetch me the bottle."

Stomping into the bathroom, Angel firmly removed just two of the pills and went back into the kitchen, placing them on the table in front of Wesley before folding his arms and watching his fellow vampire with what could only be described as a Full-On Little Boy Pout attitude. Any idiot could make tea!

Wesley's lips twitched minutely and though Spike's face remained bland his eyes danced. Sometimes it was _sooo_ easy to get a rise out of the big guy.

Opening the cupboard, Spike pursed his lips approvingly at the wide selection of teas – some of which were extremely expensive and usually impossible to buy outside their native land – that separated the average consumer from the connoisseur. He dismissed the Chinese teas – too delicate to give Wes' that bit of pep, and too good to be wasted when he was in no fit state to appreciate them. Ditto the Japanese green teas. He needed a black tea, to take away the aftertaste of stomach bile. Spike shoved the Lapsang Souchang out of the way – too strong and smoky; the Earl Grey's strong perfume scent could set Wesley's stomach off…here…Assam, perfect.

"What did you mean by that kissing cousins crack?" Angel asked, more to divert attention from him dropping his okay-maybe-a-bit-ridiculous huffy stance than any burning desire to know the answer.

Wesley looked startled before belated recollection crossed his face. "Oh, that…well it's a matter of public record in the Watcher Diaries on the web, so I suppose somebody will come across it sooner or later. Technically, Spike is my very distant cousin."

To his credit, Spike never faltered as he reached out, picked up the boiling kettle and added the water to the Assam-leaf containing teapot. "Technically?"

"Come again?" Angel was blunter.

"Spike's maternal great-grandfather and my paternal great-great-great-grandfather was the same man, Laurens Wyndham-Pryce, the 5th Baron of Wyndham, who had four sons: Pelham, Arthur, Theodore and Wrythosley. Spike's maternal grandfather – his mother's father - was my great-great-great-uncle, Theodore Wyndham-Pryce, Laurens' third son, and his second son, Arthur, was my great-great-grandfather. Of course it was recorded in the Watcher Diaries as the Wyndham-Pryces are an ancient Watcher family, but…you never knew your father, did you, Spike?"

Leaning his back against the worktop as he waited for the tea to mash, Spike folded his arms and gazed contemplatively at the artificial floral arrangement that Fred had brought from her apartment to grace the kitchen table. "No…I was posthumous. My father, Horatio de Vere, was killed in an accident in London when mum was eight months pregnant with me. It made the papers - him, two other men and the driver of the Hansom cab they were in – one of those sudden summer thunderstorms blew in up the Thames from the Channel and spooked the horse. It freaked and took off, crashed into a bridge over the Thames and they all ended up in the water. Ironic, really – and hilarious, in a disturbed kind of way."

Seeing Angel's incipient disgusted expression, Spike rolled his eyes at his grandsire and explained, "That branch of the de Veres had always been into the 'seafaring' in a big way, s'why they named my Dad, Horatio, after the country's greatest Naval war hero. That was the irony, y'see: My father suffered so much seasickness he even struggled with a deep bathtub, and then the poor bugger _drowns_ in a freak million-to-one-odds-against accident. Even evil and soulless you have to feel for the suckage rating in getting brick-batted off the mortal coil like _that_."

"You never had much to do with your dad's family?" Angel asked the question with genuine curiosity. Again with the irony, Angelus had always synched more completely with Spike, even from their first aggressive meeting, despite knowing virtually nothing about his mad daughter Drusilla's 'my Sweet William', than with his own sirelings, despite stalking them and forensically studying their lives for weeks before he had attacked – James and Elizabeth, Penn, Dru herself – even Lawson, on that damned submarine, had revealed more both consciously and unconsciously about himself than Spike ever had.

Spike's standard response on those few fleeting instances that Angelus _had_ been momentarily interested in his grandson's history had been a shrug and either a cryptic quip or classical quote followed by an immediate deflection: '_you need some fun, Angelus, your face is longer than my old bloodhound's. Come on; let's go pillage and massacre a brothel – my treat._' Always cheered up by the prospect of combining his two favourite pastimes – sex and slaughter – Angelus had never been really interested enough to ignore the deflections and force his grandson to provide an autobiography.

Back in those days, there had been none of that 'nothing tastes as good as thin feels' crap, and a guy lusted after real, Rubenesque women with wide plump hips and big juicy tits; as they were going to one notorious brothel (the male owner of which had thrown Angelus out on hearing his Irish accent, unaware of what he was dealing with), they had sneaked in through the stables and witnessed the owner – handy with a whip – berating and lashing one of the prettiest whores for becoming a 'skinny bag of bones' – their vampiric senses enabled them to determine the girl had terminal and rapidly progressing Tuberculosis.

The madam, whose opinion of her boss was succinct, accurate and obscene, had sneaked them inside and told Angelus she wouldn't charge him a penny, nor Spike – nor Darla and Dru (who liked to watch their boys in action) if they wanted to 'take tea' with a couple of ladies-for-ladies. That offer and her contempt for the owner, had saved her life – she and the 'bag of bones' whore were the only two to live out that night they spent clinging together in mute terror in the custody of Darla and Dru as Angelus let his hair down and partied; they had, finally, tortured the owner to death minutes before sunrise. Later on that day in their hideaway, Drusilla had let slip to Angelus that Spike had Sired his mother, terminally ill with tuberculosis, only to stake her within a couple of hours after her First Rising when the vampiress tried initiate an incestuous relationship with him; Angelus's mad daughter had never mentioned Spike's _father_, obviously since the man had been dead for decades.

Angel had to stop himself physically moving as he tried to shake off the memories – Angelus was always trying to insert Technicolor images of his monstrous past before his mind's eye; even now the demon was whispering that such close proximity as a 'night-long cuddle' meant that the madam had contracted TB from the other prostitute and Angelus whispered that both had died a slow, lingering death as a result of his 'mercy' when they could have died quickly that night instead – resolutely Angel squashed his inner tormentor's voice down and tuned back into to the conversation.

Unaware of his grandsire's brief flashback, Spike's grin was feral and strongly reminiscent of pre-soul Spike. "Didn't have much to do with _either_ side, truth be told. Apparently Dad was pretty savvy when it came to the purse-strings – he wasn't quite what manure is to roses when it came to cash but he wasn't daft either. When he was killed he left a watertight will making mum his sole heir, and both her Wyndham-Pryce lot and dad's de Vere clan pretty much gave up on her when she proved not to be the gullible, easily fleeced widow." Spike's voice dropped an octave and the light in his eyes became uglier, "…and o'course, once word got round that she'd got the consumption…"

"Actually, I'm astounded at the idiocy of the Watchers Council." Wesley put as Spike's voice trailed off; standing helplessly by while someone you loved died slowly of a painful illness ranked as one of the worst things in the world, and prodded a far too-raw wound of his own. "Considering how far back our lineage in the Watchers goes, you'd have thought at _least _my great-great-grandparents Honoria and Arthur would have put two and two together in 1880."

Accepting a cup of tea from Spike, Wesley took a cautious sip and found his stomach accepted it readily, so he rose from the table and went to get dressed, aware of the two vampires tracking his every move, though they tactfully remained in the kitchen; Wesley called back, "I mean, Arthur's widowed niece and great-nephew suddenly disappear from the London social scene never to resurface, and a new vampire called William turns up at the same time; it's not rocket science."

"Never thought about 'em," Spike confessed. "Hadn't seen anyone much from either side of the family for years, could've passed 'em in the street and not known it."

"Wait a minute…" Angel frowned, having replayed the last few minutes of conversation and been trying to follow Wesley's explained genealogy. "I think you lost a 'great' somewhere in there."

"It sounds like it but no." Wesley returned dressed in jeans, dark blue T-shirt and a deep indigo coloured shirt that he didn't bother to button up.

Reseating himself at the table, he took another appreciative swallow of the Assam before explaining to Angel, "At one time genealogists – family historians - used to refer to the siblings of your _grand_parents as your _grand_-aunt or uncle, and the siblings of your _great_-grandparents as your _great_-uncle, etc. It was a sterling system of efficiency and clarity, but, for some reason, it fell into disuse and it became common instead to refer to the brothers and sisters of your _grand_parents as your _great_-aunt or great-uncle, thus the brother or sister of your _great_-grandparent had therefore to become your _great-great_-uncle, and so forth."

Angel scowled. "So... all the other _children_ of your great-great-great-grandfather – for example Laurens Wyndham-Pryce - who are _not_ your _direct ancestor_ are your great-great-great-uncles or aunts - Pelham, Theodore and Wrythosley - bar your direct ancestor, Arthur, who is only your great-_great_-grandparent, but the brothers and sisters of your great-great-great-grandfather – for example Laurens again…are your great-great-great-_great_-aunts and uncles?"

"Exactly."

"My head hurts now." The dark vampire complained plaintively.

Wesley smiled then sobered. "I do appreciate the pair of you taking time out to help me. These migraines are…"

"Giant red flags to the fact that you're suffering from profound levels of stress?" Spike suggested challengingly.

"Who isn't stressed…or does the unresolved nature of the Shanshu no longer keep you awake?" Wesley retorted.

"Wes', we all seek ways to _reduce_ stress a little…that's what _hobbies_ are for." Angel cut in, pointedly looking around Wesley's apartment, "This place doesn't take stress down a notch; it kicks it into high gear."

"It's my job." Wesley was unable to keep a hint of snappishness from his tone.

"Not twenty-four-seven." Angel tried again, "You don't always have to be working, Wes."

"Yes, Angel, I do," Wesley thumped the mug back on the table, "we already forgot once what we were dealing with in Wolfram & Hart, and Fred died."

Angel couldn't pale any more but he flinched back from Wesley's harsh tone. "Wesley, no…What happened to Fred wasn't your fault…"

"It was _all_ our faults," Wesley visibly reigned in his temper. "Because Andrew Wells was right - When he and those Slayers took Dana off us on _Buffy Summer's orders_ because she didn't trust that we were still on the right side."

Angel knew the hurt was showing on his face. "Buffy's seen what we're doing now; the Scooby Gang _understand_ the deal here, Buffy… "

"Then Buffy _mis_understands the deal here." Wesley chopped off Angel's justification. "Angel, Wolfram & Hart is _EVIL_. Capitals all the way through. When me, Fred, Gunn and Lorne accepted their offer, nobody batted an eyelid because we were just ordinary, easily corruptible Joes. But when _Angel_ said yeah, that was Shock Horror; it was as if in the space of thirty minutes you'd gone from Anakin Skywalker in _The Phantom Menace_ to Darth Vader in _The Empire Strikes Back_. You have _no idea_ just how _scary _that is. When _I_ do something dangerously amoral, people see just another human irritant corrupted by power. When _you_ do something even _slightly_ morally ambiguous, people whisper, _"Angelus!"_ and start backing away towards the nearest exit…Spike's never made any secret of how he feels about Wolfram & Hart – I believe your phraseology was, "'I've got no desire to join the evil Empire.'""

"Sorry, Angel," Spike spoke without any hint of his customary attempts to bait his grandsire. "But I won't go corporate. I wouldn't have accepted the offer, I'm sorry. Leopards don't change their spots, and you don't change the world, it changes you."

"You're locked into being the ultimate mystical workaholic because you think I'm turning evil?" Angel tried not to let his upset show, but knew he was failing badly.

"No, of course not! But when enough people start saying the same thing, I start to take them seriously. When Spike first re-materialised one of the first things he said was that you had walked into the belly of the beast and were so busy fighting your enemies you didn't even realise you were being digested…"

"How'd you hear that?" Spike asked, since Wesley hadn't been present at the time of that argument between himself and Angel.

The ex-Watcher ignored him. "Buffy Summers and Andrew Wells too, a lot of people on the side of the Light were and are deeply disturbed that the Vampire With A Soul is now CEO of the most evil law firm in a hundred dimensions. We've all been affected by our decision, and some of us have paid terribly for forgetting what we were getting into." Wesley's voice took on a savage note, "Knox…he was planning to murder Fred from Day One. I wish I could have kept him alive so I could practise being Angelus with him…"

"I wouldn't have let you." Angel said with absolute authority; once you crossed that line and committed an act of pre-meditated murder, you lost something you could never get back, as both Andrew Wells and Faith could testify; he would never allow Wesley to do that.

"I _would_ have given you a couple of minutes," Spike told the other Englishman, "but I wouldn't have let you either…goes straight to hell, that road, pet – and we should now."

"Maybe five or ten minutes…" Amended Angel as he considered suitable punishments for what Knox had done to kill Fred and allow Illyria to take over.

Wesley managed a wry smile. "The point is we were complacent. Knox, I hate forever. Gunn…hell, if you would have asked me to pick the most gullible amongst us I would have pointed straight at myself the geek." Wesley admitted, unaware of the look that passed between Spike and Angel at this Freudian slip of how he still saw himself, "But not Gunn – he fought vampires most of his life, he's smart and so street-wise he's light years ahead of me, possibly even you, Angel. But he still got gulled. When Rondell and that psycho Tito attacked Caritas and tried to make Gunn kill you and Lorne because you weren't human, Gunn backed you because you had the mission, and Rondell had lost it, killing anything not _homo sapiens_ for kicks. But now…Fred died, at least in part, because _Gunn lost the mission_. He was so desperate not to lose what he'd gained that he made the raw amateur's mistake of forgetting that _this is Wolfram & Hart_ and while everything has a heavy price, that price isn't always money."

Angel remained helplessly silent; desperate to retain the vast amounts of legal knowledge downloaded into his brain permanently, Charles Gunn had inadvertently signed Illyria's sarcophagus through Customs to Wolfram & Hart, and curious Fred, opening it, had been infected with the ancient demon's life force; their brilliant, quirky friend was now a lodger in her own physical body, existing only as a pattern of neurons in the cerebellum of a ten million-year-old demon.

"It's all of us." Wesley admitted softly, "When Eve managed to get that little parasite on you to give you hallucinations, I remember how me and Gunn were arguing in your office about killing that warlock, Drake? You asked us if we were doing it because it was right, or because it was _cost effective._ You were so angry with me when I joked that once again we found ourselves in a grey area."

"It was so much easier when we were at the Hyperion." Angel complained. "Back then we would have just taken Drake out. Him – evil, us - good. Now we live in a permanent state of Grey."

"That's exactly where you went wrong, Angel," Spike put in with a hint of told-you-so-asperity. "You're not _at_ the Hyperion any more. It's easy to be the Heroes, fighting back-to-back, side-by-side and shoulder-to-shoulder against all comers when it's just your tiny inner circle of demon-bashers who come home each night to your cosy sanctuary of the haunted hotel California. It's _not_ easy to do that when you're part of the system, just cogs in the machine. As William Thackery said, dying for your faith isn't that hard, it's the _living up to it_ that's really difficult."

"We're not at the Hyperion any more though," Wesley sighed, "We're not a _family_ any more…"

Angel's drooping head jerked up and he fixed Wesley with a look that bespoke suspicion and alarm. "What do you mean?"

Wesley had no intention of confessing his knowledge of Connor, not when it would inevitably lead to the Scroll of Niamh, not six feet away, but he didn't need to. "Angel, you've met my brother, and my father…or as good as. All of you are _still _my _family_…" He cast a sly glance at the blond vampire, "…now complete with reprobate black-sheep 'kid brother'. But at the Hyperion, we _were family_. Of the six of us, only I and Cordelia didn't actually live there – and for her it was because she didn't want to abandon Phantom Dennis - and even then the pair of us were semi-permanent residents…"

Angel nodded; he, Lorne, Gunn and Fred had all eventually taken up residence in the hotel, and most mornings, more often than not, Wes and Cordy had been present at breakfast too… "Bickering like crazy…drove _me_ crazy."

Wesley grinned. "Yes, I know. I have three sisters, but Cordy was the sister I always wanted…smart and sassy…but we're not family any more, we lost that when we came to Wolfram & Hart. Now we're colleagues. We don't gather around the breakfast bar moaning about the probable Big Bad of the day or spend our evenings flaked out in the lobby, reading and just enjoying the fact that we're all together. We each spend every day buried in masses of paperwork while suckling greedily at the corporate teat." He noted Spike's wince at the phrase the English vampire had tossed at him and Gunn on their "Crockett & Tubbs" trip to his basement.

"So how do we get that back?" demanded Angel, knowing that Wesley was right. He had felt the increasing sense of 'disconnection' to his mission as a Champion, as Wesley so right said, '_the work has lost meaning for you…_', but also an increasing sense of _distance_ between himself and those he thought of as family.

Before Illyria had killed Fred, Gunn had always been glued to a cell phone, making legal eagle wheeler-deals; Fred herself had been buried in her state-of-the-art science lab all the time; Lorne lived for his entertainment department, loving every minute of the A-list celebrity shoulder-rubbing and glad-handing his position entailed; Wesley was usually buried in his department in some arcane text, only coming into Angel to give him a bulky file on their latest grey area. Fighting for Fred had snapped them back into it, but now that Fred was able to emerge as herself, even if only with Illyria's consent, the team were sinking back into their old complacency again.

"We don't." Wesley said flatly, "Or rather the only way we do is if we jack in Wolfram & Hart and go back being the small, independent band of good little heroes who lived in penury and a crummy, massively haunted hotel again. As Gunn pointed out when you tried to quit after those nuns were murdered, nobody put a gun to our heads, frogmarched us into Wolfram & Hart and forced the keys to the kingdom into our clenched fists, and like he said, we all got something from the deal. We _made the choice_ to walk into the belly of the beast, and now we have to deal with that. Look," Wesley conceded, "I'm aware that my apartment doesn't exactly proclaim good mental health, but I do my best to keep my Id's aberrations from messing up my life completely. That's the deal, live with it."

Seeing the uncompromising lines bracketing Wesley's mouth and sporting fresh psychological bruises himself from blunt home truths, Angel nodded.

_**Continued in Part 1 – Chapter 5…**_

© 2004 & 2010, The Cat's Whiskers


	5. Chapter 5

_**Disclaimer**__: See Chapter 1... _

**SHADOWED SOULS**

**Chapter 5**

"Now you can explain _exactly_ what happened." Raging arctic storms had more warmth in them than the temperature of Buffy's voice.

Standing proud on the hill that had enabled it to escape the crater that now existed where Sunnydale had been, the description 'old mansion' was a now a misnomer. Massive renovation, refurbishment and hard scrubbing done by Xander's construction crew and teams of Slayers under the watchful eye of Drill Sergeant Faith had restored it to its original glory. Oak, mahogany, cherry wood, ash, beech, pine, teak and walnut gleamed a dozen shades from pale honey topaz to dark chocolate from layers of varnish and wax; walls stood bright with vibrant or soothing hues, or clean white stucco; tiles were re-grouted and replaced, spotless clean windows let in maximum light, some of them beautifully stained with decorative pictures.

Now as the Slayers, along with family, friends, Watchers and others gathered in the walled fountain garden, crystal clear water tinkled from the fountain repaired by Xander, benches and seats of wood and stone had been artfully placed amidst the profusion of honeysuckle, climbing roses, ivy, sweet pea, jasmine, magnolias, and a dozen other gloriously coloured flowers and shrubs. Fat bumblebees and butterflies weaved in and out of the gathered humans, incongruously dressed in blacks, greys, and dark blues.

Willow Rosenberg sat with her hands clasped on her lap as her partner Kennedy the Slayer faced off against her best friend, but the world's pre-eminent witch made no move to interfere. Kennedy had done nothing wrong, and was more than capable of holding her own, but still…Willow's eyes moved and unerringly met the gaze of Xander Harris, her oldest friend, her brother in every way that really mattered. Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris had stopped needing words to communicate with each other years before a little blonde cheerleader arrived from LA and picked the pair of them to be the founders of the Scooby Gang…_This is why Buffy is the Queen of All Slayers_, Willow and Xander acknowledged to each other.

"I-It's alright, ma'am. We don't want to 'cause Fallon's friends any more hurtin'."

The words were uttered by the man sat on one of the stone benches, his arms around a slender, strawberry-blonde woman who, like him was in her early fifties. Nearly six feet and five inches tall, bulky and solid without being fat, with greying brown hair and eyes the blue of faded denim, the speaker was dressed like J. R. Ewing in Dallas circa 1985, his attire and his Southern drawl proclaiming him an almost stereotypical Texas oilman, and a wealthy one. However, the embrace that held his wife was tender, and his eyes were red-rimmed. To the left of the couple were four younger people – two women and two men, their faces equally etched with grief.

"It isn't all right. Fallon was already well on her way to becoming a great Slayer before she reached us," Buffy said with a quiet sincerity that made several people bite their lips in remembered sorrow, "and look what she did with Dana…"

Automatically most people cast their eyes towards the long-haired brunette, clad in a simple black sheath, who was huddled in a chair in the shade of a fruit tree, her fingers restlessly twisting around each other. Andrew Wells' quietly delivered conclusion that, "'Spike was right, Dana is too damaged to be anything other than a monster…like him and Angel'" had depressingly turned out to be more true than not, or it had been until Fallon Mady arrived. So severely mentally disturbed she could only function with medication that left her lethargic and 'zombified', Dana had nevertheless made some connection with the new Texan Slayer that gave the first glimmers of hope that she might one day be close to rational. Certainly it was due to Fallon's influence that Dana had been able to approach Spike in LA when they went to fetch back Dawn.

Now that hard-won progress had been lost, the mentally ill Slayer slipping back into her twilight world, and Buffy Summers wanted answers. The Mother of All Slayers had lost a daughter, and someone was going to pay.

Kennedy knew she was in no danger from Buffy; after Faith, the second most famed Slayer, she herself was third in the hierarchy, mainly through her relationship with Buffy's best friend, Willow, but still a shiver went down her spine. This woman had been preventing Apocalypses for a nearly a decade, and had defeated the First Evil: in short, Buffy Summers was _not_ someone you wished to annoy. The Slayer cast a glance at the tableau behind Buffy - Fallon Mady's parents, two brothers and two sisters. They had arrived _en masse _with the Texan girl when she descended on Sunnydale like a whirlwind, the vivacious Texan girl from whose funeral they had all just returned, for Fallon Mady lay forever in the cold Californian earth, never to grow any older than eighteen.

Kennedy marshalled her thoughts as everyone waited. Fallon Mady had been one of the many Undiscovered Potentials scattered around the globe, those not brought to Sunnydale, who had been 'born' full-grown like Aphrodite in the instant when Willow Rosenberg used the power of the Scythe to turn Potentials into Slayers according to Buffy Summers' decree: "'_From now on, every girl in the world who __**might**__ be a Slayer, __**will**__ be a Slayer, every girl who could have the power, will have the power, can stand up, will stand up. Slayers. Every one of us.'"_ Kennedy herself knew that even Buffy had not truly understood the scale of the global shockwave that had surged like a mystical tsunami around the planet as Buffy, unknowingly at the time, fulfilled True Prophecy and became the slayer-Queen, Mother of All Slayers.

Their searches to find the Slayers was still ongoing – some of the slayers were minor children with initially uncooperative families; also they couldn't physically accommodate every Slayer in the world here, and new situations were always cropping up, because the "one slayer dies, the next is called" rule now held for _every_ Slayer. But sometimes, the _Slayer_ had found the Scooby Gang…

Temple Mady and his wife Ardith were rich but sensible people whose families went back in Texas to its War of Independence from Mexico during the 1830s. Their eldest child, Charlotte, now sat next to her mother and gripping her hand tightly, was a veterinarian, while their second, son Colby, standing behind his father, his face white, was a medical doctor in Dallas. Ryan, trying to be grown up at fourteen, intended to be a marine biologist and ten year old Arabella wanted to be either a ballerina or a Navy Top Gun pilot. What they had in common was that they were a close-knit loving family, who had never understood their third child, but had never cared as long as she was happy.

Fallon Mady had never been able to explain her lifelong bizarre nightmares, fighting fairytale monsters and looking into dream-mirrors that reflected ever-changing images of girls she'd never met, of how she was able to speak languages she'd never heard of, but she had controlled _them_, not the other way round. She was bright and witty and kind and generous to all. She had fainted in the family's San Antonio kitchen, after feeling "very peculiar". Less than twenty-four hours later, riding the Mady's ranch on her favourite Appaloosa gelding, Fallon Mady had utilised impossible, super-human strength to save her father, uncle, cousin and two ranch-hands whose pick-up truck had been flipped upside down. It had been impossible for her to right the truck, yet she had done so. Nobody, least of all Fallon, understood her compulsion to come to California, but like a spawning salmon she had come, carrying her parents and siblings, baffled but protective, in her wake. She had homed in on the mansion like an ICBM, bursting in like a hurricane of noise and colour.

And now she was dead, less than three months later.

"We were drained of our power." Kennedy said finally, flatly. "We were fighting a couple of Polgara demons – there were six of us, including Fallon." Kennedy shook her head from side to side, allowing her frustration to show, "It was as if all our batteries had been drained at once. I was in the _zone_, you know? Then I felt violently sick, the world spun around me and I fell down, I felt as weak as a newborn kitten, I could barely move…"

Shannon the Slayer stood up, meeting Buffy's gaze squarely. "The only reason you're not burying six Slayers instead of one," she broke off and nodded respectfully to the Madys, "is because the Polgaras were as nonplussed as we were. They seemed to take it as some sort of attack plan."

"Fallon died saving my life." Kennedy ignored Buffy and directly addressed Temple and Ardith Mady. "One of the Polgaras was about to fillet me like a mackerel, when Fallon kicked its ass – it threw her into one of the tree trunks before we killed them both. We didn't realise how badly injured…"

Temple Mady nodded – Fallon had suffered multiple fractures and a sub-dermal haematoma, but had died unexpectedly of kidney failure in hospital a few hours after her family, dashing up from Texas, had visited her. Then the big Texan looked at Buffy, but spoke to them all, "Ah don't claim t'understand this Slayer business. But what ah do know is this – my little gal was a heroine, and she died fighting for something _good_. This family will always be proud of our Slayer."

"Fallon was a credit to you all." Buffy told them, "She was a wonderful person. I promise you I'll do everything in my power to find out what went wrong."

Ardith Mady straightened up, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "Ah don't claim to understand being a Slayer either, but it seems to me, an ah apologise if ahm bein' foolish, that a Slayer's power being drained like a battery sounds like something too big for it's boots tryin' somethin' nefarious against yawl."

"On the contrary, Mrs Mady," Rupert Giles was polishing his spectacles with his tie in an absent minded manner that many of those gathered had come to recognise, "you have hit the nail on the head. The Scooby Gang has many mottoes, one of which is: _There are no accidents,_ and not for a second do I believe that six Slayers losing their powers – albeit momentarily – at the same time is a coincidence."

"Reckon it's time for one o' them Research parties yawl have?" Colby Mady put in.

"Yes." Buffy put in. "I want everyone hitting the books, the scrolls, the 'Net. Nothing, no matter how insignificant it seems, is to be missed. Giles, you and Willow co-ordinate the book-fest."

Ardith Mady cleared her throat. "Ah know we won't be of much use to yawl on account of bein' new t'all this, but ah cahn speak four languages – if yawl'd teach us some of these fancy-fangled other-dimension tongues, we'd be glad to help with the research."

Her family nodded grimly, while Buffy blinked in startled surprise, not sure how to respond. The Mady family were grieving for their beloved Fallon, and anger was a natural part of the grieving process – rage both against the one that died, for leaving them, and those around her who lived while the loved one did not. Buffy had expected to experience the brunt of the Madys' irrational fury over Fallon's death, not understanding, gratitude and acceptance of the harsh reality.

"It's a most generous offer," Rupert Giles stepped in as he saw how taken aback Buffy was by the Madys' dignity and poise, "but I'm not sure it would be _good_ for you. Many of the texts we have are certainly not suitable for minors – " he glanced pointedly at Ryan and Arabella, " – and most have, er, rather _graphic_ illustrations on most of the pages. You would be very disturbed…"

Ardith Mady's eyes flashed with the fire that had lit the eyes of her dead daughter. "Mr Giles, some bastard tried to make six Slayers intah demon food, an' got mah baby killed. You haven't seen anything yet. When we find the son-of-a-bitch who killed mah Fallon, _then_ Mr Giles, you'll see disturbed!"

_**Concluded in Part 1 – Chapter 6…**_

© 2004 & 2010, C. D. Stewart


	6. Chapter 6

_**Disclaimer**__: Please see Chapter 1_…

**SHADOWED SOULS Part 1**

**Chapter 6**

"_Wesley, _ah swear, if you don't get out from under mah feet right now, I'll get Illyria to kick your ass down the corridor an' back!" Fred placed her hands on her hips and glared furiously at her beloved, at this moment firmly believing that testosterone was a lot more trouble than it was worth.

For an instant Wesley felt amusement sweep him at the sight of Fred standing in the middle of her own science lab, looking for all the world like an irate kindergarten teacher, her Texan accent leaking through in her irritation, but he suppressed it in an instant. Nobody wanted to do anything that would encourage Illyria emerge, least of all Wesley; he knew that everyone, in the back of their minds, experienced the same fear he himself did: that one day, Illyria would emerge but _never_ go back, though he had reached a sort of acceptance within himself at being both Fred's lover and Illyria's mate.

Maybe he should hit up Xander Harris, probably the world's leading expert when it came to the old 'demon lover' gig, for some tips? "Fred, I don't really need – "

"Yes, you _do_ need to go to _Ye Olde Britannia_." Fred cut him, having no intention of revealing the chat that Angel and then Spike had individually had with her after helping Wesley get over his migraine, each vampire's featured theme being that Wesley needed a safety valve. "Part of the success of any relationship is _personal space_. I love you like crazy, but we're together almost constantly and it's starting to make my skin itch. Besides, you boys are much happier when you get to spend some quality time watching the game on TV or guzzling beer in some strip joint – _not_ that _you_ will be frequenting such places."

Ignoring the implicit warning in her final words, Wesley tried again, "But Fred, Harmony is a vampire –"

"Wesley, this was _my_ idea." Fred cut him off again, "And I _know_ Harmony is a vampire. She's also a very over-worked, grossly under-appreciated and _lonely_ creature of the night. I need some just 'me and my gal-pal' time, and now that Cordy's…gone…Harmony's pretty much _it_. Nina's still too shy around us to come except when it's a full moon, Gwen's still having too much fun bamboozling Gunn at the minute. Besides, you know Illyria can handle Harmony if she gets all 'grrr.' Go to your cute little Brits' bar and have a couple of beers on me. That's the point of Fun Friday!"

Wesley sighed with histrionic intensity aware he was never going to win this argument; truthfully he'd known the futility of trying since he started – which had been about fourteen hours and some minutes ago!

Team Angel held a 9:00am 'staff' meeting daily (mostly) in Angel's office. Yesterday, Thursday, the gang had all been there by ten-to the hour, the non-vampires grasping their caffeine-loaded drink of choice (Gunn, mocha; Fred, long black; Lorne, cappuccino; Wesley, latte) and bickering over the breakfast pastries. As Angel crooked an eyebrow at where Harmony sat in full secretary mode on a chair to one side and the team began to settle down, the red 'bat-phone' on Angel's desk had shrilled, making them all look at each other nervously.

Picking up the receiver as gingerly as if he feared it would turn into a Crucifix in his grasp, Angel had answered the call, speaking briefly to Willow Rosenberg before replacing the receiver and informing them of the situation – a Slayer had been killed, and the signs were that some Big Bad was trying to work some mojo to drain the Slayers of their power, so would Team Angel see what they could find out on the subject at their end?

As Gunn had then stated, the only surprise was that someone in the Evil camp had waited so long to try such a thing; even from being a toddler in LA, Gunn had heard the other-dimensional beings talk in hushed whispers of fear and awe about _the Slayer,_ an all-purpose bogeyman amongst non-humans, any Big Bad with sense would _not_ be impressed at discovering _the Slayer _was now an entire global Army of _Slayers_.

Fred, however, had firmly announced that while she was happy to spend _Thursday _researching the possibilities amongst those who wanted – or rather and who also had the ability - to turn the Slayers back into ordinary girls who just had bizarre dreams, she wouldn't be doing it Friday because she and Harmony were finishing work at lunchtime to spend the rest of the day indulging in 'retail therapy' and 'severe credit card abuse' followed by immense pampering at a little health and beauty salon Fred knew. This had caused consternation, mainly due to her choice of companion. However, the truth was that _nobody_ had had any real 'downtime' since they took over Wolfram & Hart, with the possible exception of Spike if you counted his days trapped in limbo as a non-corporeal entity in that way.

Then Lorne had said that maybe he should visit Caritas for longer than ten minutes for once, catch up on the gossip, and also drop in on Gru and Phantom Dennis at Cordy's apartment, see how the Pylean Hero was getting on? When Wesley had commented that he hadn't been to the Britannia for a while, Angel hadn't even needed to glance across at his grandson, he could _feel _the look Spike was giving him at this opportunity, so the dark vampire had decided that an evening of kicking back was just what they needed.

Now, allowing Fred to shoo him out of her lab while she prepared to wrap things up for the day, Wesley had no problems with Angel's edict as such. The bat-phone had gone again a few minutes after Willow's call, and this time Angel had put Rupert Giles on speaker-phone for a multiple-conversation call. After giving a précis of the events surrounding the unfortunate death of Fallon Mady, Giles had pointed out that Caleb's destruction of the Watcher's Council by a well-placed bomb at the First Evil's behest had destroyed not just people but, to be blunt, far more valuable and in many cases irreplaceable mystical texts – information on Slayers, other dimensions, prophecies and so on – that the Council had gathered over thousands of years.

Only the late Quentin Travers' unusual foresight – or paranoia depending on how you looked at it – in having the Council's archives split up into secret repositories around the world had prevented Caleb's bomb changing a major but surmountable inconvenience into a devastating catastrophe on a par with the burning of the Library of Alexandria. Trusting that too much had happened in the interim for Giles to ever remember sending him one tatty old scroll, Wesley had tentatively mentioned that when they were trying to destroy the Beast, Lilah Morgan had managed to get an unexpurgated copy of a certain vital book on the pan-dimensional black market. Beside him, Fred had stiffened at the mention of the murdered lawyer, but fortunately Giles had seized on Wesley's point.

Wesley entered his office, glancing at his watch – it was nearly noon. Fred and Harmony were going to be the first to peel out, and Lorne wouldn't be long behind; the empathic demon was already togged up like the Ultimate MC, in a natty daffodil yellow suit that complemented his emerald skin. Replacing what had been lost to Caleb's bomb would be yet another long-haul project for the Scooby Gang, for tracking down such literature in other dimensions was never easy, particularly when you used the Ghost Roads, the fastest, most efficient – and most dangerous – route to move between dimensions as opposed to the more traditional opening of a portal between realities. That wasn't why Wesley was going to _Ye Olde Britannia, _however. Giles had specifically mentioned "'references in a now lost Scroll of Niall or Neil'" and after the call had ended and Team Angel started their own little research party, five times in the first hour Wesley had come across references, some obscure but some direct, to what he knew to actually be the Scroll of Niamh.

Having memorised the damn thing word perfect in the first week he'd read it as an acne-suffering teenager in the Watcher's Academy sub-basement, Wesley knew that the Scroll referred to two concurrent but unrelated Big Bads, and while the attack on the Slayers was the major incidence, it was also the short term one. Unfortunately, the Scroll was again damaged beyond legibility for a section beyond that point, and it had taken great effort of will _not_ to yield to the childish impulse to throw it down on the floor and jump up and down on it in seething frustration. However, he'd gleaned a sufficiency from it, though at the cost of his migraine. Yet again, the Scroll mentioned the children of light, whom Wesley had pretty much settled on as Buffy's sister Dawn Summers and Angel's son, Connor "Riley". The Scroll commanded protection for the female Child of Light, she who was 'in peril from the Cobra Watcher'.

Snakes were often associated with evil because Eve, the Mother of Man, had been deceived into eating the forbidden fruit by the 'Morning Star' who had used a literal snake in a ventriloquist's trick to catch the startled woman's attention; a cobra was, of course, one of the most poisonous of the serpentine species. Wesley was also deeply disturbed by the term 'Cobra _Watcher_', as the image of Rutherford Sirk kept popping up.

A mystical scholar and demon-language linguist with few equals and fewer superiors, Sirk had been a major player in the Watcher's Council for decades; When Wesley was a child, the acerbic, dour man had often spent many nights cloistered in Roger Wyndham-Pryce's study with Wesley's father after the children had been put to bed. By squeezing down the gap between his bed and the wall, and pressing his ear to the old Victorian radiators in their rambling London townhouse, Wesley had been able to hear every word spoken in the study directly below his bedroom, like a telephone call where one party is standing in a large, echoing room. Indeed, Wesley had learned far more about the nuances of alternate-dimension languages by listening to Sirk and his father's uncensored conversations than most of his schooling.

A year after Wesley's graduation from the Academy, six months before the vampire Kakistos had murdered Adele Lindstrom, Faith Lehane's original Watcher, and Wesley had been chosen as her replacement, Rutherford Sirk had betrayed the Council's entire ethos, stealing a priceless codex amongst other books and scrolls as he absconded to Wolfram & Hart, selling out to evil in return for a corner office and tons of cash. Beyond the physical loss of the codex, the psychological impact of his betrayal had metaphorically rent the Council asunder. One or two other bugs had also crawled out from under rocks, such as Gwendolyn Post, who had tried to murder Buffy and Faith in a bid for personal power, all the more shocking since Post had come from an old, respected Watcher family and had passed with flying colours and not a hint of aberration the battery of physical, mental, emotional and psychological testing that candidates for the Watcher Academy underwent.

Shutting down his computer now, Wesley started on a few last bits of paperwork; he had never been under any illusions about the initially innocuous sequence of events that had set him upon this path, this path that had led him, finally, to this office where he worked towards helping two vampires with souls achieve redemption. Sometimes he wondered: what would have happened if the Council had chosen another Watcher to be Faith's third in as many months after murdered Adele and evil Gwendolyn? An older Watcher, someone more experienced? Would that Watcher now be sat in this chair, mate of a demoness, servant of a vampire with a soul, branded traitor and Judas?

Wesley doubted it. The choice, the decision that had led to him being in his current corporate office had not been that of Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, but that of his father and the rest of the Watcher Council: he would be Faith's new Watcher, but Wesley knew he had been chosen _specifically_ _because_ of his youth, inexperience, naïveté, desire to please, and because he could be both easily intimidated and manipulated – look at how the Council had played him when they tried to snatch Faith the first time. As Angel had said, he was reaching the angry, grieving, distraught Slayer until some idiotic British guy had interfered – Wesley, acting on direct orders of the council, had effectively tossed a lit match in a powder keg without the sense to even duck.

Catching sight of his sober reflection in the glass door of one of his office bookcases, Wesley smiled, wryly. He was the _mahju, _it was his job to get the Vampires With Souls to their Apocalypse on time…

_**End of Part 1; continued in Part 2…**_

_Author's Note: _

As far as I am aware, neither Liam's, William's nor Faith's surname has ever been mentioned on _Buffy The Vampire Slayer _or _Angel_. I wanted to pick a surname that reflected Eliza Dushku's ethnic heritage, but did not wish to cause offence by using "Dushku" itself, so I originally picked 'Szczeçin', which is a small town in Eastern Europe near the Carpathian Mountain Range; however, shortly after I originally completed Part 1 of this story in 2005, a comic book BtVS story came out in which Joss Whedon picked 'Lehane' for Faith's surname. Personally I prefer my surname, but I yield to Mr Whedon's choice.

NB – I got a review for Shadowed Souls Part 1 via from a reader named "Suki", who asked several insightful questions. Unfortunately she did not have any email address. I cannot reply to Suki unless she emails me again with a return email address. I don't wish her to think I am rude and ignoring her.

© 2005 & 2010, The Cat's Whiskers


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